Chinese space lab to crash from sky this weekend; possible landing spots include U.S.

This weekend's weather forecast calls for temperatures in the 50s, light winds and a very small chance of fiery remains from a falling Chinese satellite.

Tiangong-1, China's bus-sized space lab that has been orbiting the Earth for years, is expected to crash down from the sky as soon as Saturday, according to the latest space agency estimates.

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Current trajectories have the satellite falling somewhere between 43 degrees North and 43 degrees South latitude, a huge swath of the globe that includes a large amount of water but almost all of the U.S. as well as major cities around the world as far south as Argentina.

The shape of China's falling space station Tiangong-1 can be seen in this radar image from the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques. (AP)

The Chinese Manned Space Agency said it unexpectedly stopped functioning in 2016 and has since been traveling downwards ever since, with a reported height of 196.4 kilometers, (122 miles) above the Earth's surface as of late Thursday, according to China Daily.

Though there is a chance that a particularly large piece of the satellite makes it down to strike the surface, scientists expect most of it to burn up in the atmosphere.

Map showing the area between 43 degrees North and 43 degrees South latitude where Tiangong-1 could fall this weekend. (ESA)

The Chinese government told the United Nations' space committee earlier this week that "The probability of damage to aviation activities and human life and facilities on Earth is extremely low."

But that doesn't mean that skywatchers will not see unusual activity as the object hurtles above their heads, which is likely to create fireballs as different parts of the space lab burn up.

The website Heavens Above has a live tracker of where the satellite is above Earth at any given moment, and Space.com reports that it will likely be over the U.S. around dawn the days of this weekend.